With the increase of gambling at gaming venues has come increased competition between gaming venues to obtain a larger share of the total gambling spend. Gaming venue operators have therefore continuously looked for new variations and types of games in order to attract both new and return customers to their venues.
In response to this need, suppliers of gaming devices and systems have attempted to provide the sought after variety, while still developing games that comply with the relevant regulations in the jurisdiction of the gaming venue operator. Suppliers of gaming devices therefore are faced with restrictions on the types of games and gaming machines that are allowable, both in terms of the prevailing regulations and in terms of providing a return on investment to the gaming venue operators.
One type of gaming machine that has had considerable success is one that implements a spinning reel game. In a spinning reel game, a set of reels, typically between three and six reels are defined and one or more pay lines are defined across the reels. The player can wager on an outcome of the game, the outcome represented by the combinations of symbols along each pay line when the reels are shown in their stopped position. In some games the player can wager on one or more pay lines at their choice and normally the more pay lines that a player wagers on, the higher the total bet required. Also, players may be offered the choice to wager different amounts on each pay line, for example selecting between wagering one credit and two credits per pay line, with a wager of two credits resulting in a doubling of an award payable for a winning combination on the pay line.
The reels may be mechanical reels or representations of reels displayed on an electronic display. Only a portion of each of the reels is usually visible, with that portion displaying to a player of the gaming machine one or more symbols, each symbol being displayed in a symbol position of the display. The collection of symbol positions often define a matrix or other array. For example, a spinning reel game with five spinning reels that each have three symbols visible to the player when the reels are displayed in their stopped position may define a 3×5 matrix of symbols positions. In this type of game, the pay lines normally are defined so that each pay line includes five symbol positions, consisting of one and only one symbol position from each column in the matrix.
The reels normally have a fixed length, and outcomes of the game are represented by the stopping positions of the reels, which in turn define combinations of symbols along one or more pay lines that extend across the symbol positions. When a combination of symbols along a pay line defines a winning combination, as defined in the pay table and rules of the game, then an award is awarded to the player by the gaming machine.
Another type of spinning reel game has an individual reel for each displayed symbol position. In this type of game the pay lines may be defined across the symbol positions in any direction.
Another type of gaming machine provides a card-based game. In these types of games a plurality of cards are presented to a player to reveal a symbol on each card that represents an outcome of a game play. The cards often are presented in one or more hands and the cards in each hand may be displayed together, for example in symbol positions that are arranged to define a row of cards.
A still further type of game is a dice-based game. In these types of games, a plurality of dice are presented to a player with one or more faces shown to reveal one or more symbols on each die that represent the outcome of the game. Again, the dice are often presented in groups, for example in rows and/or columns, with outcomes defined across the displayed symbol positions, which in these games are the presented face(s) of each die.